Redefining Past
by TheAlgea
Summary: Part II of the Redefining Trilogy. Set almost six months after Redefining History: Loki's fate is unknown, as is Thor's. Clint wakes up from his 'coma' only to be thrust into a changed world. Steve is falling apart. Natasha is keeping a secret from everyone and Tony must deal with repurcussions that are breaking him. The Avengers must face their greatest enemy yet: their own Past.
1. Chapter 1

**Yes, I am starting with a sequel instead of a three-part-story (see my note in Redefining History) If you stumbled upon this and have not read Redefining History I suggest you do that now or all of this will not make sense. Probably. A short summary if you don't want to read the first part: Loki returns to earth but as a child with no memories. In the meantime Thanos wants the Tesseract and Loki (to punish him for his failure), lots of shit goes down, lots of hurt, torture etc. In the end Loki decides that he'll risk his life to save everyone else's and his faith is currently unknown.**

If there is a hell, Clint's sure this is it. Somehow he's always imagined hell to be a place with a lot of fire everywhere and giant chasms all around, maybe some people, ripped to pieces only to be sewn back together to start the process all over again.

There's only darkness. Not even one little fire, no stench of amputated, rotting limbs or eyeballs rolling around. No eternal pain or damnation just black, pitch black.

Sometimes light flashes, like a lightning bolt suddenly coming down from the air, only there's no storm or thunder to accompany it. A flashing white light that's so sudden it blinds him all over again and it's only on those moments that he actually hears something. Hurried whispers and panicked shouts and sometimes he thinks he hears the buzz of machines but he's pretty sure it's all in his head.

Since there's not much to do, the only thing Clint can think of to do would be to try and remember. This is what he knows: the world was gonna end. He shot a staff instead of the actual enemy and then everything had happened so fast even his eyes hadn't been able to fully follow it.

Loki, he remembers Loki, he remembers the god-child, how he'd collapsed after Clint had fired his arrow and even as a non-magical being, Barton had felt it, not only had the wind stopped blowing the room had suddenly felt, _empty_ like it was missing a person. Like it was missing a presence, only he'd never realized it was there, until it was gone.

Normally Barton knows how much time has passed when sitting in a dark room doesn't matter how disoriented he is, time, somehow has always been constant in his life, has always been that one thing he could rely on. You have two hours to complete that mission, report in three. Five minutes before a bomb goes off and rips you apart. Two milliseconds before that bullet pierces your skull and you're dead. Two seconds tops, needed to shoot a perfect arrow.

But now, and he's not even sure _when _now is, he doesn't know. Maybe that's also the reason this is hell. Eternal is still time, it's difficult to grasp but it is possible, in here it sometimes feels like hours have passed and then suddenly he realizes that's he's been counting seconds but that the numbers are all jumbled up in his head and he's not even making any sense anymore.

His eyes burn when another flash of white light comes out of nowhere and only a few moments (or hours) later another one comes down.

And then that darkness is gone and he sees a flash of red, before he loses consciousness once again he hears her speak.

"He's awake."

Another voice answers, at first he thinks it must be an Asgardian healer or something like that, doing his magic hocus pocus to patch him up but he recognizes the voice. It's Banner, Clint's pretty sure he thinks Clint's already blacked out.

"I don't think you should tell him already."

He doesn't hear Natasha's answer but he thinks it's something in the line of:

_He deserves to, he needs to know what happened after all this time._

XxXxXxXxXx

When someone asks him, he's working. No one's asking of course. And he's actually working so there's not really a problem at all. Except that he can't sleep, that even when he's not sleeping he can see them.

At first it hadn't fazed him. Nightmares, they're there all the time, he almost can't remember a time when he didn't have them. But then, he started seeing things. Now that sounds like he's gone batshit crazy or something but Tony Stark is pretty sure he hasn't.

His mind still works, his genius brain does what it's supposed to do on most moments. On the moments it's not he can see her.

Pepper

She stands before him suddenly in his lab, she doesn't say anything she doesn't move and when he blinks a couple of times she's gone.

He's still afraid. He's so afraid what might happen if she does start talking. She's not real, she's in his head, she's his hallucination from post-traumatic stress but he's still afraid. Again if someone would ask him he would firstly deny that anything's wrong and then he'd say he isn't scared.

No one's asking though.

Tony had at least though saving the world from a Mad Titan would've given him some kind of peace. Naturally it hadn't.

He's put Jarvis on mute, he's put Jarvis on mute for a long time now and every time he wants to unmute him, to talk to him again he stops himself. And then he feels even more pathetic than he did before because if he can't even face his self-made artificial intelligence computer how is he ever going to fear an actual person?

His hands start trembling and stabilizer he's building falls out of his hands and he doesn't even have the will to pick it back up.

It rolls around on the floor. The chair he's sitting on is scraped back and when he gets up he almost feels like sitting back down but he doesn't.

He goes upstairs in a pace that would make a ninety-year-old-man seem like a star athlete.

His fingers linger over the button, when he presses it he can almost feel the house come back to life as Jarvis wakes up.

Tony is glad that the A.I. stays silent, like he knows this is not the right time to talk.

"Show me her." Tony asks.

A zooming noise is heard as systems that haven't been online in a long time start to flicker back to life.

On the screen she appears, and this time it's not an illusion.

Her beautiful hair if tied in a bun, she's sitting at the desk in Stark Industries running his company like she should. It pains him to admit it but he's never seen her this relaxed even in a job as stressful as the one she's taken on.

If he could only ignore the S.H.I.E.L.D. file in the right corner of the screen, just to remind himself, to wake himself up he drags the file in front of him, it obscures Pepper wholly and he can no longer see her.

He rereads the report, even though he probably knows it by heart by now.

Pepper Potts

Current location: Stark Tower  
>Current condition: Under surveillance.<br>Mission: constant surveillance  
>Objective: Insurance of remaining of the Memory Wipe<p>

Pepper Potts, the love of his life.

Doesn't even remember that she loves him.

XxXxXxXxXx

"Captain, we await your orders."

Rumlow looks eager to jump off the plane.

Steve shakes his head, his mind had wandered again, in the middle of a mission.

"Go!" He says and then he does as he just ordered and jumps out of the plane.

It's only a few seconds before Rumlow somehow catches up and screams way to close to his ear.

"YOU FORGOT YOUR PARACHUTE AGAIN!"

Steve presses his arms even more to his side and gains enough speed to leave Rumlow behind once again, especially since Rumlow does have a parachute.

"DON'T NEED ONE!" He yells and he tries not to sound too proud but he can't help but smile because Rumlow can't see him anyway.

Once he hits the water he quickly boards the ship, he almost curses his slip of falling in the water, as that must have made quite some noise but no one had awoken.

The mission is almost too easy and within five minutes all the enemies are gathered on the deck and the information they need is safely stored in Rumlow's suitcase.

Steve Rogers a.k.a. captain America congratulates his men before boarding the plane again. On the way home it sneaks up on him. Sometimes it's suddenly there, other times it goes slowly and although he tries to stop it, it never works.

The despair, regret and loneliness, the sorrow and anger all catch up on him eventually and every single time he wrestles though it but after every single time he has trouble remembering why she's still struggling so hard.

After what happened, to Barton. What had to happen to Pepper because she would've gone insane if they hadn't done what they did. What happened to Loki, what happened after all this time.

What happened to Bucky, what happened to Peggy, the Howling Commandos.

When he's alone at home, in his weird apartment because he doesn't want to live in Stark Tower like S.H.I.E.L.D. had suggested, he can't help but think.

He can't help but wonder why he's still here. Bucky's gone, Peggy's gone, the only things that had happened since he had woken up from a sleep that lasted seventy years had been horrible things. Death and destruction and suffering.

But then he's jogging at Central Park again or he's visiting another museum to catch up with what's he's missed and he sees the people around him. He sees some kids recognize him and stare at him with mouths wide open he chides himself for ever having such moments of doubt. He's here for them. He's here for everyone, for anyone that needs him.

And then he smiles but he knows that for one reason or the other, his smile almost never reaches his own heart.

XxXxXxXxXx

"Tasha."

Agent Romanoff doesn't look up from the pad she's holding, showing her the statistics of her partner's body. She moves though when Clint tries to swing his legs over the bed.

Her hands press his chest back down insistently and she's almost tempted to strap him down with those blue straps that hang limply from his bed but decides against it for the time being.

Barton presses his hand against his head and scrunches his eyes shut, groaning.

"What happened?"

_So much_ she wants to say, instead she says: "The end of the world almost did."

Clint opens his eyes, only to immediately narrow them in her direction.

"Oh so you tell jokes all of the sudden?"

"Just because you're injured, doesn't mean I won't strangle you."

A smile tugs at the corners of his lips before his mouth is set in a thin line.

"Tell me what happened."

Natasha opens her mouth to answer when suddenly Bruce Banner comes in.

"You're awake." He states.

"Thank you for that diagnosis doctor." Clint mumbles sarcastically.

Bruce frowns.

"I should check up on you." Bruce says.

"That can wait-"

"-no it can't."

Natasha's face doesn't betray it but she's surprised Banner actually interrupted someone. She can see Clint is too.

"What?" he asks in disbelief.

"Look I know-"

Banner ignores him blatantly and turns to her instead.

"Do you mind? I work better if I'm alone with him."

She leaves but not before she hears Clint complain.

"Why are you my doctor anyways? You're not even a medical doctor."

She allows herself a small smile when she hears the obvious pout in Clint's voice.

She walks down S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters until she's in the communications room.

A very big image of Fury occupies the screens and as usual it doesn't look happy.

"Agent Romanoff." He says.

Natasha nods.

"Director."

Fury looks at her for another moment before he looks down at the paper in front of him.

"I hear Barton is awake."

"He is."

It's silent again, like Fury isn't sure whether to pretend his agent isn't talking to a nine feet tall image of his face.

"How is he?"

Natasha doesn't like that question.

"He's awake." She says again and that's it. Fury frowns but then his face returns to his normal angry expression.

"Did you speak to him?"

Natasha almost snickers.

"You must have had a talk with Doctor Banner."

Fury sighs and shakes his head. For a second she can see the fatigue on his face, the weight that's on his shoulders almost crush him.

"He'll find out eventually it's better if we tell him now, the situation is unstable as it is, if Clint thinks we're keeping secrets…" She shrugs.

"Well more secrets than usual we might lose him. Especially now."

"I do not need a reminder of Coulson or Clint's affliction to him." Fury bites.

She doesn't feel sorry.

"You're not telling him-"

-"I'm not. Don't worry, he needs to know what everyone else knows and nothing more."

Clint does deserve to know.

About Pepper. About Loki.

If she has to do it this way than so be it.

Fury sighs again, rubbing his forehead for a second before resting his hand back on his desk.

"I leave it up to you, agent Romanoff to find the correct timing to tell him."

"Thank you, sir."

When Fury's face disappears from the screen she dials Steve.

"Hello." The voice of Steve asks uncertainly.

"Hey Popsicle."

"I never liked that nickname."

"You like Captain Spanbutt better?"

"Did you call me to remind me of all the horrible nicknames Tony ever created?"

"Partially." Natasha says, she almost smiles. Aside from Clint Rogers is the one she likes the most in their 'Avengers'. He's almost the polar opposite of herself. He fights for righteousness and he himself is more of a saint than actual saints. She's the one that's working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and won't even manage to wipe out half of her sins after working for them for a lifetime.

"I just wanted you to know, Clint's awake."

A moment of silence.

"How is he?"

She repeats the same answer she's given Fury.

"Awake."

"Should I-"

"-No. Not yet. Not until I've told him everything."

The moment of silence that comes next stretches out for a long time.

"You sure?"

Natasha nods even though Steve can't see her.

"Everything."

It's a lie. Steve doesn't know. Tony doesn't know. Bruce doesn't know. She doesn't think Clint should.

XxXxXxXxXx

"_How about taking on someone of your own size?"_

_His fist slams into the bully standing there with his mouth still open from surprise. Before he can recover he quickly kicks him in the gut and pushes him away from Steve._

_The bully scrambles away as fast as his fat legs manage to carry him. For a fat kid he's surprisingly fast._

"_I could've taken him."_

_Bucky huffs._

"_Sure you could, I mean after you played dead for an hour or so."_

_He sets Steve back down._

"_You were getting heavy anyway." The brown-haired boy smiles._

_Steve pulls a face._

"_Ha ha, very funny Bucky."_

_They walk silently, Bucky wants to speak but somehow he doesn't find the words. He opens his mouth and closes it again._

"_Don't you dare say it." Steve warns._

_Bucky rolls his eyes._

"_Steve you're ten and you still want to fight someone three years older."_

"_It's not like I want to fight." Steve protests._

_Bucky's eyebrow is raised as his voice drips with sarcasm._

"_For someone who doesn't want to fight you get into a lot of fights."_

_Steve shoots him an annoyed look._

"_He was bullying some kid."_

_And that's it. Steve would rather have himself being beaten into a pulp than some other boy who he doesn't even know. But they're both ten so the conversation quickly changes into more pleasant things._

_They joke about stupid things and tell each other about these great war stories they've heard or other things that really don't matter but they like them anyway._

_And then that memory suddenly changes. Out of nowhere the world turns black and Steve turns around, his hands grip metal and the wind slaps him in the face._

_They're standing on a train._

_Steve is holding a metal railing, and beneath him is the giant chasm, Bucky is next to him and he tries he desperately tries to be there in time._

"_Hang on!" he hears himself say. Bucky's grip on the metal bar, Steve can see it loosen._

_In an act of desperation he hold his hand as far as he can._

"_Grab my hand!"_

_But Bucky can't grab his hand._

_And Bucky falls._

_And Bucky is dead._

_Because of him._

XxXxXxXxXx

The ground shakes as he lands. At first mortals all around him are screaming but then they recognize him and suddenly all he sees are these mobile devices called cellphones pointed at his direction.

Thor doesn't care.

Thor doesn't care about anything anymore.

He's here, on the place he so cherishes yet he feels no joy or relief.

The only thing is the heavy tugging at his heart, the weight of grieving and sorrow drowns all the other emotions.

_Loki, his brother._

He had expected the Man of Iron to be there first.

Instead he sees the red-haired woman walking towards him, next to her is Captain America and behind them he sees an army of agents.

He knows they're not hostile but for some reason seeing those agents make him angry. All the sacrifices he made, _his brother_ had made and how did the mortals show their gratitude.

Somewhere in his mind he realizes of course that their actions are nothing but logical but still he cannot shake his feeling of anger and resentment.

He lifts himself up until he towers over most of the people before him, Mjolnir heave in his hand. He takes a deep breath. This must happen, he needs them, now more than ever.

At first he narrows his eyes as he sees no one else is coming.

Agent Romanoff shakes her head silently. It shall wait then.

Director Fury comes up from behind them and stalks toward Thor with a steady pace. If Thor cared he would've noticed the exhaustion on the face of the mortal leader but he doesn't really care so he doesn't really notice.

Silence.

In the background there's a lot of commotion but again Thor cannot bring himself to even care a little bit. His thoughts are with his brother. His thoughts are with the things that happened in these last few months. How he had felt like he abandoned his brother even though Loki couldn't possibly know, when he went on diplomatic and necessary missions. He had wanted to stay in Asgard but his father wouldn't allow it. A prince has his duties and Thor had yelled at him and screamed but after that he had felt so empty and the months had passed by agonizingly slowly yet far too fast.

When he finally remembers that he's been standing like this for a few very awkward minutes he takes another deep breath.

"Citizens of Midgard." He nods to agents Romanoff and Steve Rogers. "Avengers, Asgard requests your presence." His mouth feels like it's filled with ash.

"for the Death declaration of Loki Laufeyson."

**Please bear with me, I love a good cliffhanger.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Since I don't think it's fair if I only give you a chapter you've probably already read, Here's the next chapter already! Please review and tell me what you'd like to happen next or what you think will happen next! Can anyone guess what Natasha isn't telling Clint, or everyone else for that matter?**

"Loki is dead?"

Director Fury doesn't know whether to be relieved or not. Yes, Loki may have saved the entire universe, still he was, or had been, the madman that had killed hundreds in the Battle of New York and since arriving on earth had caused nothing but trouble. Then there's still the big question: what does this mean for earth? What will these Asgardians do now that their prince is dead?

Fury doesn't get much time to ponder though because Captain America blurts out his surprise rather quickly.

"You said he was in a sort of coma how did he suddenly die?"

Fury wishes the Captain had a little more tact but to be honest he wants to know as well. Almost six months ago the Avengers had landed back on earth when Fury asked what happened to Loki and Thor (and the rest of the universe for that matter) he had received only grim faces. Barton had been unconscious, in a coma and it had been Bruce who answered his question.

"Loki is…." He had seemed at loss for words before Romanoff finished his sentence for him while following agent Barton who was being strolled away on a stretcher.

"Like Clint."

As she walked away Bruce had mumbled: "In a vegetative state."

When Fury had looked at the other Avengers he had still been none wiser, He had seen Tony, holding an unconscious miss Potts and only when she had woken up had they realized something had to be done. Miss Potts mind couldn't handle what had happened and to everyone's surprise it had been Tony Stark himself who had requested the Memory Wipe.

His trip on memory lane is interrupted when Thor's answers.

"My brother has not woken from his slumber," it almost sounds like Thor is choking on the word 'slumber', "An Asgardian should not live in such conditions.

"So you're pulling the plug?"

Fury is one hundred percent sure he had ordered agent Barton to stay in the base.

Barton is leaning heavily against a S.H.I.E.L.D. SUV, he's panting like he's just run a hundred miles and Fury has to admit that he is impressed. After being immobile for almost six months and still can he stand. Then he catches the look Barton gives agent Romanoff and he notices it's the SUV Black Widow had come in that he's leaning on.

Still standing upright, Fury wants to scold him yet be proud of him at the same time even though if anyone asks he's not proud at all Barton's just an agent.

"What?" Thor asks, somehow his voice seems smaller, not that Fury can imagine Thor's voice as anything but loud.

Barton rolls his eyes in a display of childishness that he never seemed to have lost until Coulson died.

His eye rolling turns serious rather quickly as he narrows his eyes.

"Natasha told me everything. Loki might be in a 'vegetative' state that doesn't mean he can't wake up."

Thor looks away, almost as if he's ashamed.

"It is no way for an Asgardian to live." He repeats through clenched teeth.

"Unless my brother awakes from his slumber before the end of the summer solstice, the magic that is keeping him alive will be taken away."

Immediately Captain Rogers open his mouth to, undoubtedly to spray his talk about morals in everyone's face but he closes his mouth.

Even Fury has caught the small movement of Thor's head. At first Fury though it was a shake. Instead he now sees it's a nod.

It takes a moment or two before they finally realize what Thor is trying to say.

Fury remember Thor telling them about him and what the Norse mythology says about him.

_Heimdall sees all_

XxXxXxXxXx

_The arena is dusty. Well the arena mostly exists out of sand so of course it's dusty but still, it irritates Loki to no end. He doesn't see why he's standing in it anyway._

_When he turns his head he can see everyone else fighting each other as usual. He sees some guy called Gunner make yet another less experienced kid bite the dust. Loki scowls as he sees the smaller child scramble back up, what does the kid want? Another beating?_

_He doesn't have to look far or long to spot his brother, Thor is standing in the middle of the arena, holding his sword as high as possible and motions the everyone around him to start cheering, which they do, naturally._

_His opponent, Fandral gets back up and swooshes his sword._

"_Not bad, not bad." He pants, trying to act as if he's not out of breath. Pretentious little-_

_He stops insulting him in his head as Fandral manages a swing at Thor but fails and his brother quickly pushes him. Fandral lands on his back but before he can get up Thor's sword's already at his throat._

_Fandral inches a little farther away from the sharp tip._

"_I yield!" he says quickly._

_Loki rolls his eyes, why do people even bother?_

_He's about to turn around, his hour of sitting in the arena and pretending to actually do something is over, mother had said she'd show him more magic after this training and he can't wait to sit in peace and quiet instead of this rat hole his brother seems to like to much, for reasons he will never quite understand, when his brother's voice stops him._

"_Loki! Brother, you've been sitting at the sidelines for far too long why don't you train with me."_

_Loki huffs, with everyone watching what else can he do than accept?_

_He turns around with a face that tells Thor exactly what he's thinking but his brother just grins his stupid idiotic grin._

"_Choose your weapon brother!" he exclaims. Loki ignores the stares he's getting and holds his hand out. The familiar pull of his seidr almost make him smile, he's not entirely sure it'll work because he's just learn this one but when he opens his eyes and looks at his hand he sees the two daggers._

_One of the people in the crowd that has gathered snorts._

"_Daggers? Those are hardly honorable weapons!"_

_Everyone laughs for a second before Thor shoots them a glare. He looks back at Loki._

"_Knives brother? Surely we can fight with something else?"_

"_You said choose your weapon, I did." Loki snaps. The crowd is dead silent but he can see the scorn on many faces. He'll show them!_

_Loki quickly pushes away the people standing in his way and makes his way to Thor._

_Thor lifts his swords from his shoulder and takes a fighting stand._

_When the fight begins Loki knows he'll only have one chance, Thor(s bigger, stronger and almost as fast as Loki is. He's not as sly as Loki or as resourceful but they're in an arena filled with sand and Loki will not sink as low as to throw sand in his opponent's eye._

_Thor's swords barely misses its target and Loki shakes his head, no time to ponder to long._

_He blocks the next blow with a large effort and manages to slip behind his brother only to find the sword's already found it' way back and is coming in his direction once more._

_He duck just in time and he almost bristles with annoyance, how long are they going to keep this up?_

_The continuous blows stop for a moment and they shuffle around, Thor makes another move and before the sword gets back down Loki dives forward, the knife he's used scampers off of Thor's armor and suddenly he feels his brother's arm pushing him forwards, in a desperate attempt to keep his balance Loki flails with his arms but he goes down anyway._

_The moment he rolls around to stand back up, he feels the tip of Thor's sword at his throat._

_At first it seems no one has noticed the fight's over and then there's loud cheering and yelling and Thor offers him his hand to get back up but Loki can feel a red hot anger rising up in him._

_Thor had KNOWN Loki hadn't stood a chance and challenged him anyway and once more it had ended with Loki being humiliated. With an angry snarl Loki slapped the offered hand away and pushed his way through the crowd, cursing._

_Even when he's far away from the arena he can still hear them laughing, cheering for his brother because of course they're cheering for Thor, Thor's amazing Thor's a good fighter, Father loves Thor, everyone loves Thor._

_In his anger his fist curls around the knife he's still holding even more until his knuckles turn white and he doesn't even feel the rush of seidr that overcomes him until he looks down at his hand and he's not holding a knife anymore, when he opens his hand, the sand that was once a knife falls to the ground._

XxXxXxXxXx

"Sir, we can't reach Mr. Stark." The agents states.

Natasha stands up.

"I'll reach him." She says and she follow the agent out of the room.

Clint sighs, well this will definitely come in his top 10 most awkward and tens-filled moments of his life. He stretches his legs again, they feel like jelly and so do his arms for that matter. It irritates him that he probably won't be able to properly shoot until he's trained his arm muscles again.

It also irritates him that Thor still hasn't said anything.

Natasha had told him everything. About Pepper Potts who now doesn't remember ever been in contact with the Avengers or loving Stark. About himself, naturally how he'd been in a coma for three months and then, because of medical and magic reasons, they'd had him sedated for nearly another three. She'd said something about brain damage and not being properly healed but definitely able to be conscious. He'd also heard about Loki. Natasha had admitted herself that even she still didn't know all the details yet.

Everyone had been wounded after Thanos… well things aren't clear about what exactly happened to _him_, even now and Asgardian healers had induced sleep to them (not to Clint of course he was still in a coma) and healed them in a couple of hours. They'd healed the most dangerous damage and wounds and the minor ones, like broken bones and all that and then they had dropped them back on earth after warning them about Pepper. Apparently none of the Avengers had had any contact with Thor whatsoever and when they had asked about Loki and Thor they hadn't gotten many answers.

The only reason that they had known that Loki was in a coma was simply because they'd been formally informed about it before being dropped on earth.

When he looks around in the room he'd almost say it's not him that's been in a coma for a long time but everyone else. Steve Rogers is leaning on the table with one arm and is staring at nothing, his eyes are unfocused and he doesn't say a word.

Banner is scratching his hair and typing things on a pad, like he believes working is going to solve everything or that he'll find some miraculous formula that will end all the problems.

Thor, well Thor, Clint doesn't even know where to begin.

Clint is the person who had kidnapped his brother and then almost killed him. Clint's the one that had wanted Loki dead. That had made it quite sure that he wanted Loki dead.

When he looks back at it he feels hollow. Loki's Death declaration, seven months ago, he would've jumped and hooted for joy, right now he feels an emptiness he never really knew he had. When he thinks about what Loki had went through, what he's still going through. If the coma for Loki is anything like it had been for Clint…

Well he doesn't know.

He tries not to think about that darkness, that eternal hell for too long.

The doors open automatically as Fury steps into the room, followed by Natasha and Stark.

If Clint had though Rogers looked like hell well, he hadn't seen Stark.

Under his eyes are dark bags, his hair looks like it was hastily combed a few moments ago and the suit he's wearing seems out of place. He tries to radiate that confidence Clint had seen before his coma but it's a cheap rip-off.

He smiles, trying to pretend no one notices how he looks. Clint doesn't know why but he doesn't feel the need to do the same, to pretend he's perfectly alright when he's not. Normally he would. He'd pretend to be more than okay, he'd tell everyone that he's still as good with his bow and arrow as he's ever been even though he can't even string up his bow properly right now.

Especially being in the presence of Thor, whose brother he had showed nothing but contempt and hate he would've put up an act and probably one that would be more believable than Stark's but Clint doesn't.

For some reason, pretending seems so useless and a waste of precious energy.

"Now that we are in a secure room, away from prying eyes we can talk more freely about what the hell is going on." Fury starts off his sentence as semi-polite but the end is snapped anyway.

Earth's mightiest heroes have fought their greatest battle yet months ago and it still looks like they've come fresh out of battle.

Tony sits in the nearest chair with his legs draped over the armrest. He's holding his phone like he's watching a youtube video and swings his legs as if on some kind of swing.

"So in other words: why am I here?" He asks he feigns annoyance but he only sounds exhausted.

Thor raises his head.

"You, Avengers of Earth, your presence has been requested-"

"-somehow I don't get the feeling it's a request." Tony interrupt and he pretends not to notice Thor's murderous glare.

"to be present at the Declaration of Death of Loki Laufeyson."

Tony narrows his eyes and Clint tries to look anywhere but anyone's eyes. He can practically feel their eyes on him, expectantly awaiting his reaction but he's already heard all of this and he feels nothing but emptiness.

"Loki is dead?"

Thor grits out the words.

"He might as well be, the state he is now, is no way for an Asgardian to live."

It seems Thor only has two sentences to say here: 'your presence is requested' and 'it is no way for an Asgardian to live' like he's been set on auto-pilot.

"And you don't think we'd want some more explanation?" Fury bites. The doors open and in comes Maria Hill who glances at Clint for a second before seating herself too.

"The Bifrost will open in a few minutes, the necessary belongings will be transported later." Thor says, like it's no big deal.

"Excuse ME?" Fury says.

"Who exactly are you taking? What does this declaration of Death mean, huh?"

"The Avengers, protectors of earth." Thor says.

Fury's head would've been hilarious in any other given circumstance.

"So what? You're going on a space journey with them? Just like that?"

And then Clint feels like a vacuum cleaner has decided to try and suck him in and Fury's face blurs just like the rest of the room and he's standing on the rainbow level of Mario Kart.

"Welcome, Midgardians." A deep voice startles him and when Clint looks around he sees all the other Avengers are staring at the big guy with the big sword, golden armor and impressively deep voice.

Well except for Thor who nods to him, Heimdall, Clint guesses and then he walks away. Well they don't have much choice but to follow and the stony silence make everyone uncomfortable. Also the fact that Black Widow has to half carry Clint makes for some uncomfortable atmosphere as well.

Clint wants to start cursing and complaining about the suddenness and unfairness of this all but he keeps his mouth shut like the rest of them. It's almost like there's an aura around Thor that radiates power, grief and especially anger. It makes Fury's anger seem like a child's tantrum.

When they're in the palace Clint can still see the signs of the previous fought battle, small but definitely there and it makes him even more uncomfortable. A powerful ad rich race like the Asgardians, shouldn't they have been able to repair this damage in no time?

When Thor leads them directly to their chambers without as much as a word Clint somehow feels relieved they didn't pass the comatose Loki.

When Clint thinks about a twelve-year-old looking child, lying in a coma after a battle like the one he's been through he can feel a stab of… guilt? Honestly Clint doesn't know anymore how to think or what to feel.

The room Thor's brought them in is luxurious and now that Thor's left Clint feels like he can breathe again, everyone else shares his opinion apparently because then the talking starts.

It's Tony complaining at first but then it's Bruce (yes Bruce it is quite a shock) reacting and rationalizing and then it's Rogers trying to break them up but ending up almost fighting.

Both Natasha and Clint are sitting at the sidelines not feeling the least bit inclined to join in or break it up.

Tony suddenly seems to break though. They've been fighting for a good half hour by now and suddenly he tears himself away from his fellow Avengers and marches to the door.

"Thor cannot do this, I have to get back right now to earth-"

His hand is at the door and it stops, it's trembling and soon the trembling spreads to the rest of his body.

"-Pepper." He says. He takes his phone out of his pocket and watches it again and Clint realizes it's not some sort of youtube video he's watching. He's watching the amnesiac Pepper Potts. Or he was anyway because he keeps pressing on the screen, harder and harder and eventually he throws it away with as much power as he can muster and even though it's not much the phone still bound of the wall with a broken screen.

"Tony." Rogers sounds as lost as Tony looks.

"Look, on the bright side, maybe here they have something to help her."

Tony looks up from his trembling hands.

"Help her?" he repeats, eyes glossed over.

"They didn't help her months ago, they left her, the left us!" His voice grows more steady by the second and he gets up and stalks to the group again.

"THEY DROPPED US OFF ON EARTH AND THEY DIDN'T HELP PEPPER!" he's almost screaming by now. He turns to Clint and advances on him. Clint doesn't feel Natasha reacting like Tony's a threat and decides to do the same.

"THEY LEFT YOU IN A COMA AND THEY LEFT!"

Barton wishes he knew what to answer to that because if he honest he has to admit Tony's making a very good point. One Clint has been thinking about too.

"We could bust out and ask them." He hears himself say.

"What?" Rogers exclaims.

"No, this is diplomatic we shouldn't-"

-"great idea!" Tony throws his hands in the air. He marches to the door again but before he can even touch the door knob it flies open.

Thor steps in and behind him is a woman Clint's only seen once. During the battle he's never really caught her name then but he knows enough of Norse mythology. Frigga.

The doors close automatically. Probably some magic trick or something like that.

Tony isn't shouting or raging or overloading anymore.

All of them they just stare at the two gods.

The woman breaks the silence.

"You must wonder why you are here." She says. No one answers but she can probably see it on their faces.

"I'll tell you."

She takes another step forward and says: "You are here to save Loki, my son."

**Loki's alive! Kinda, you'll see! I am psyched for this sequel and I hope you guys are too, please review/comment/like/follow/favorite!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Yess, we are finally getting somewhere in this story! For the ones wondering what it is Natasha isn't telling: you'll wait quite a while. Unless you can guess it then I'll update faster! PLEASE a lot of people followed/favorite and please to those people it only takes two minutes of your time but it makes my day: REVIEW/COMMENT anything, crisis to praise!**

"What?" Tony is the first to get shaken from his stupor.

"I understand that this requires an explanation." She says, calmly.

"It's more than an explanation we _require_!" Tony cannot help but let the venom in his voie sound through.

Thor takes a step forward his mood seems to darken even more if that's possible anyway.

"Watch your tongue, you are speaking to the All-Mother."

And suddenly an unspeakable rage fills him up and Tony would like to say he doesn't know where it comes from but when he's honest he has to admit that it's always been there. It's been inside of him, this rage this frustration, for months, he's drowned them in sorrow and alcohol but now it's resurfacing with more vigor than it ever has.

"No. You _watch your tongue_!" Tony sneers. He stalks over to both the gods conveniently forgetting who he's talking to as rage and exhaustion make him blind and impulsive.

"You think you can just do this to us?" he asks and he doesn't let them answer.

"You DUMPED us back on earth after the battle without explanation or a proper _thank you_! YOU LEFT US ON EARTH." He turns in Barton's direction and points.

"HE WAS IN A COMA, DID YOU COME DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS AND FUCKING HELP US?" he turns back.

"Did you?" His hands are clenched into fists.

And at some point he feels tears pricking behind his eyes and he blinks them away but his voice sounds broken even to him.

"Pepper," he's trembling again.

He looks at the one Thor called 'All-Mother' accusingly,

"I bet you don't even know who I talking about. I bet she's not important enough for you to even remember her." His rage cools down and still he couldn't care less about the fact that he just back mouthed the All-Mother.

When Thor takes another step forward he is stopped by his mother.

"Pepper Potts." Frigga says.

"Of course I remember her. She's also the reason why I am standing here before you, Midgardian heroes." She holds her head higher.

"She is the mortal whose memory had to be wiped for her mind to survive. Her mind could not handle the seidr and the energy that Thanos had given to my son."

She looks around, making eye contact with every single Avenger.

"Her mind is linked with my son's."

Realization draws on Tony's face.

"If you save him, you will save the mortal you care so much about."

XxXxXxXxXx

"_You can't just waltz out and detonate those bombs, you're going to kill thousands."_

"_And save billions! You've never had any problems with killing children before."_

"_You don't have to tell me who I was Natasha, I know full well what I used to do, that doesn't make up for this. These are sick people."_

"_S.H.I.E.L.D.'s orders were clear Barton."_

"_You wanted to wipe out the red in your ledger, Natasha, if you do this, it'll never go away."_

_She yanks her arm out of his grip._

"_Orders are orders." _

_And then she's gone._

_When she walks out that door she can feel the disappointment when Clint doesn't follow and she immediately hates herself for it. Clint is not her friend, she doesn't have friends. She doesn't NEED friends, she's perfectly fine alone, she's always been fine alone._

_The trip to Russia doesn't take long when she's at the customs service she feigns the nervousness of a young lady at her first flight. A secretary on her first actual business trip and the guards buy it._

_They even help her find a cab._

_It takes a long time before she's there. The hospital. Or the excuse of one. It's old and abandoned she doesn't know why S.H.I.E.L.D. has chosen this location exactly in Russia there are plenty more almost abandoned pathetic building full of innocent people._

_She knows she shouldn't, she should stay here, at a safe distance and not see the sick orphans inside, it will make her weak but she goes anyway. She needs to scout the area._

_XxXxXxXxXx_

"_She did it." Maria Hill doesn't sound the least bit surprised._

"_You were wrong." She states._

_She turns away from the screen that's just shown the explosion to look at Nick Fury. He doesn't look at her though, his gaze goes right through her like she's only air._

_With an irritated sigh Maria sits down. She pulls the files they have on Natasha Romanoff closer._

_Coulson is standing at the door and hasn't said anything either._

_Maria turns to him since Fury isn't talking._

"_She's a liability." She says._

_Coulson is still staring at the screen with an concentrated gaze. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are narrowed like he can't see the screen properly._

_The screen of the pad closest to her is pulled closer and she overlooks it._

_The text on the screen should be impossible._

"_The team…" she begins. _

_The director locks eyes with Coulson._

"_I hope you know what you're doing." He says._

_Coulson nods and smiles before turning around and leaving._

"_So do I."_

XxXxXxXxXx

"So what do we need to save Loki?" Tony asks, Clint's pretty sure he's never heard Tony be this enthusiastic about saving Loki before.

"With the instrument that caused his doom."

"The Mind Gem?" Clint can't help himself.

"I destroyed that."

Frigga's face doesn't betray anything. Only at that moment Clint realizes being proud of destroying the thing that can apparently cure Loki isn't very wise right now but he'd said it before he fully realized what he was saying.

"Not the Mind Gem. The Tesseract."

Clint frowns. Rogers says what he's thinking

"What happened to it? I don't remember it falling in the Void with Thanos."

Frigga nods.

"It didn't. It self-destructed."

"Wait what?" Tony exclaims.

"Therefore you will go to a place, no a time, where it still exists, take its power with this:" she holds out her hand palm up, a light shines blinding them for a moment and when it fades a colorless gem in no particular form rests in the palm of her hand.

"We'll do what?"

XxXxXxXxXx

_The wind slaps him in his face for the umpteenth time and Clint's pretty sure he's not a winter person. Or a Russia person, he likes beaches a lot more. And warm countries. Any country that's not Russia._

_The hospital he's visited already, there's absolutely nothing there. He had at least expected some rubble but every single molecule of dust had been taken away. When he had asked the people living in the nearest town they'd said it was taken away for further research. Further research his ass._

_Even the fucking train is cold. Outside the wind howls even harder and snow is still falling out of the sky. Clint's been here for almost a day and it still hasn't stopped snowing._

_He had finally found something that resembled a lead, the address of a morgue the bodies were brought to. The people there probably know jack about detonators and probability of survivors but still._

_He's told everyone he's taking some time off. A small vacation in the shadows, off the grid and Natasha hadn't even properly reacted when he told her. Fury just told him to hurry his meditation rounds up because there were a lot of missions waiting for him._

_The people around him are dressed in fur coats and hats and scarves and they look pretty comfortable. Clint's wearing his combat gear underneath a large sweater and an even larger fur coat with the warmest hat he's ever seen and two scarves and he's still freezing his ass off._

_He quickly stops a cab and orders the driver where to go. The only good thing about all of this is that he can finally use his Russian._

_The cab stops and almost slips but the driver manages to stop the vehicle about an inch away from the pavement. Clint almost wishes he'd just knocked the driver out and driven himself but that would attract attention and he can't afford that right now._

_The morgue is open and the receptionist is absent. He quickly makes his way to the morgue. All the victims had been buried already but the guy who's been in charge is still here somewhere._

_His name is Checkoff. Clint's pretty sure he's never heard a more Russian name than that._

_He searches for almost half an hour, how big is this fucking morgue? And then he practically runs into the guy._

"_Oh excuse me!" the doctor gets up and brushes his clothes off even though Clint's pretty sure there absolutely no dust in this entire facility._

"_Doctor Checkoff?" Clint asks. The man looks up at the mention of his name. He's a small man with a face that reminds Clint a lot of a rat. The exact face Clint imagined someone who works in a morgue has._

"_That's me." The doctor says. His voice higher with every word._

"_Yes, I need all the information you have on the hospital fire two days ago."_

_The doctor pales and tries to run away._

_Clint sighs, grabs him by the collar and hoists him back with ease. Such a little guy._

"_Well?"_

"_Who are you? I know nothing!"_

_Clint frowns and shakes him._

"_You sure?"_

"_L-Look I examined the bodies and-"_

"_That's a lie, if I ever heard one." Clint smiles._

"_W-What? N-n-no it's n-not!"_

_With another sigh he reaches in his pocket, his hands close on the knife and when he takes it out he says: "I had hoped I wouldn't have to use this."_

"_Look what I said it's true!" The doctor sqeaks._

"_I know nothing!"_

_The knife closes in._

"_I literally know nothing, there were never any bodies recovered from that accident!"_

"_What do you mean, there were no bodies? The hospital exploded everyone saw that!" Clint hisses._

_The man's trembling and is opening and closing his mouth like a fish._

_With an angry shove Clint pushes the man up the wall, his toes dangle an inch or two off the ground and his head looks like it might explode at any second._

"_You've got exactly one minute to explain." Clint grumbles and then, after a moment for good measure he lets the doctor go._

_He coughs and touches his own neck gingerly._

"_There were no bodies, I swear! Look, no one knows where those children went okay? There were no remains, nothing! The government saw this as an easy excuse to blame the terrorists that have been attacking lately so they came by, some goons and they told me to pretend I had done autopsy on the bodies."_

_Clint narrows his eyes._

"_Then what did they burry on the funeral?"_

"_Empty coffins, I swear!"_

_At first Clint 's pretty sure the doctor is lying his ass off but then he remembers that all the children in there had been orphans. Without realizing it he voices his thoughts out loud._

"_And nobody would care enough about orphans to ask questions." _

XxXxXxXxXx

"So what? We use the TA.R.D.I.S. and Doctor who our way to the Tesseract?" Tony says.

Frigga looks confused for a second before she recovers.

"We do not have a… T.A.R.D.I.S. but you will find your way to the Tesseract in the past."

Rogers takes a step forward for the first time.

"How is that possible?"

Thor answers this time, his voice sounds impatient.

"It requires a lot of energy."

"And who's powerful enough and willing to give us that much power?" Natasha adds.

"I bet that Hela woman is." Clint helpfully supplies.

"Even so and this is assuming she'll help us a second time, time travel shouldn't be possible right?" Steve asks.

Bruce nods.

"Us going back in time to a time where the Tesseract exists it would cause a paradox wouldn't it? What if we change something?" Steve's certain Bruce is a bit too excited for all of this.

"If you would allow me to explain further, Heroes of Earth." They all look back to Frigga.

"Hela is indeed powerful enough to send you back. But she will not help you, it was a rarity that she ever showed her face in the first place." Frigga takes a deep breath.

"I however am capable of this magic as well."

"So what's the plan?" Tony asks. "You send us back in time, we fill… that-" he points at the amulet in Frigga's hand, "with Tesseract Energy and then we bail?"

"I wish it was that simple."

"Of course it's not that simple!" Tony complains, "It never is!"

"My magic needs an anchor, the only reason this will be possible if someone or something of the time you need to travel to is present and guides my magic."

Everyone, naturally looks at him. But Steve isn't paying attention anymore. Back in time, what if, what if he can get far enough to the moment Bucky died. He can save him, Bucky will be still alive.

"So it's settled then?" Tony eagerly exclaims.

"It is." Frigga nods."Your weapons and equipment will be here any minute."

Her sentence isn't even properly finished yet when their weapons suddenly appear, flickering for a second with a golden light around them.

And then she motions at Steve to come to her.

"A word Captain of America." She says.

The other aren't listening anymore, they're trying to prepare and Thor is explaining more to them but Steve is thinking about Bucky. He can save Bucky.

When they're far enough so no one can hear them Frigga looks him in the eye.

"I know about the losses you had to endure all those years ago."

He's not that surprised.

"As the anchor, you, willingly or not, will be the one who has the most influence on _where_ you and your friends will land."

That much he had already figured.

"You must know this Captain of America: you cannot change the past, you cannot meddle with your own time stream, whatever you do, whoever you lost, you can never bring them back or save them. Or you will destroy this reality and everyone in it."

XxXxXxXxXx

When Natasha helps him up Clint hates himself. He's weak and he knows he can't blame himself, it's the coma, it's the fact that he he's trying to use muscles that he hasn't used in a long time that's making him like this but he can't shake the feeling. He feels vulnerable more than he's ever felt before because here he can't count on his bow and arrows or his hand-to-hand combat skills.

They take a step and for a moment he can her falter, like she's missed a step but Clint knows that Natasha never misses a step, she never falters, she never stumbles. He shoots her a look but she blatantly ignores him.

She brings him to a bed in the far corner of the room where no one can hear them.

"You-" Clint isn't planning on letting her finish.

"What happened to your leg?" Natasha doesn't look away and Clint doesn't either. It's an awkward staring match.

"Nothing." She says.

The staring continues.

"It's none of your business."

"Of course it's my business Tasha we're partners."

"We do missions together Clint, that's it."

Silence again.

She raises her head, breaking eye contact.

"Anyway as I was saying, you can't come."

"What?"

"You're in no state to fight. Your muscles are weak you can't fire a bow Clint, you can't even properly walk."

"I think I can do something about that."

How did she manage to sneak up to them?

Frigga raises her arms and a light golden glow appears before Clint feels his strength return. Slowly but steadily. It still doesn't feel like he's a hundred percent but it's certainly an improvement.

He grins at his partner.

"You were saying?"

XxXxXxXxXx

"_Let the kid go!" her weapon is pointed at a terrorist, who in turn is holding a gun to a ten-year-olds head._

"_Don't think so, you drop the weapon and I might consider not blowing this innocent child's brains out of his skull." The man barks, pressing the gun closer to the boy's head. The kid whimpers and bites his tongue, terrified eyes are pleading with her to save him._

_Around them is a crowd. How Natasha hates a crowd. There are at least a few dozen people hiding behind building but they're watching that much is obvious._

_She's standing in the spotlight, the exact place where she doesn't want to be. These people should run and not watch. They shouldn't watch her doing this. Natasha hates the stage and the same thoughts occur to her as the one she had thought at the Battle for Asgard. Natasha Romanoff is not a hero._

_Right now she's got two choices. Shoot anyway and kill the kid. Don't shoot and let the bad guy get away and probably let him murder the child afterwards._

"_I'm not repeating myself." Natasha states, her voice calm just like her exterior and it's putting the terrorist on edge. Normally this all wouldn't be something for S.H.I.E.L.D. but if this group is not stopped, if this man gets away, they might risk an full out war, and if not stopped, a nuclear war is a very possible scenario._

_She takes a step forward and the man tries to press the gun harder into the kid's temple but then he changes his mind and points it at her. He alternates between threatening to kill her and threatening to kill the child._

_She takes another step and when the man fires she ducks, the bullet goes past her without as much as a scratch and she takes another step._

"_STOP RIGHT THERE!" the man screams hysterically._

"_No." she says_

_And she shoots, the man falls over but his finger is still holding the trigger and it fires._

_A pain shoots up from her leg and she grabs it. As blood seeps through her fingers she sees the boy run, crying to his mother._

_XxXxXxXxXx_

"_Good job." Nicky Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. says in a rare display of praise._

_Natasha gives him the chip._

"_Have I ever not done a good job?" she smiles before turning around and walking out of his office. _

_The elevator is empty and she's relieved, she hasn't told Fury or S.H.I.E.L.D. about the bullet. She'll take it out herself later there's no need for stupid doctors and too much pain medication that will make her groggy._

_Then Maria Hill comes in at the last moment. Natasha knows Maria Hill had been one of the people in S.H.I.E.L.D. that was against her recruitment. Maria Hill is a professional though and she's not shown her any animosity so Natasha really doesn't care._

_It's silent in the elevator for a while but then Hill apparently had gathered up the courage to ask._

"_How did you know you wouldn't hit the child?" she asks._

_The doors open and Natasha knows it's her floor so she gets out._

_Natasha knows her own limits and skill. Natasha doesn't take risks. But Natasha is not a hero, Natasha doesn't want people to think she's one either. She's not. She's an assassin, the only thing she has is blood on her ledger, on her hands. _

"_I didn't." she says._

**The flashback, I must ask: what do you think about them?**


	4. Chapter 4

**Are you guys losing interest? Please tell me what you think or whether you want me to continue or not! The exams are coming so I can't promise any regular updates! **

"We're ready, zap us to the past!" Tony exclaims as he takes a ridiculous pose, with his left hand on his hip and his right in the air like he's going to fly away at any moment superman-style.

"We'll be back in a flash!" he looks proud of himself.

"I don't think it works that way Tony." Bruce says dryly.

Tony looks disappointed.

"So how DOES it work?" he asks. Naturally they all turn to the All-Mother and Thor.

"Time flows differently in the past." Frigga says, "I nor your captain can bring you to the exact moment that you can retrieve Tesseract Energy."

"So how does the uhm Time-flowing work?" Bruce asks.

"One day in the past is only a few minutes in the present but a day in the past may feel like mere seconds to you."

"What?"

"You cannot let your sense of time influence you, time has a different meaning when crossing with it. A second to you, might be hours in the past."

"So how long do we have?" Still no clear answer. He feels like he's repeating himself.

"What feels to you as a day." Frigga answers. She's not making any sense of you ask Tony. So they're not supposed to rely on their sense of time but they do have to rely on it to know how long they have?

"Okaaaay." He turns to Steve, who's been uncharacteristically quiet.

"At what time can we retrieve the Tesseract Energy?"

"_You must know this Captain of America: you cannot change the past, you cannot meddle with your own time stream, whatever you do, whoever you lost, you can never bring them back or save them. Or you will destroy this reality and everyone in it."_

"Captain Rogers?"

"Hey Popsicle!"

With a start Steve jumps up, he should've known that it's impossible to save Bucky. He cannot stop the growing ache in his heart though. For a moment there, he had let himself hope.

"When I saved the 107th." Steve says and even to himself his voice sounds empty. He purposefully leaves Bucky out. They don't need to know or think he won't be able to handle going back.

"You can bring us there?" Thor asks.

Steve nods, though he can't help but feel the doubt and uncertainty.

"Then let us not waste time. You must be back in a five hours. I cannot hold the portal any longer. If you do not return before then, you will be stuck in the past forever."

XxXxXxXxXx

_She walks away. Until an elderly woman stops her._

"_You saved my grandson." _

_The mother has somehow caught up with her again and almost clings to Natasha. She resists the urge to fling the woman away._

"_I killed a known terrorist." Natasha answers evenly._

_The woman starts saying things in her native language so rapidly Natasha barely understands her._

_She pulls her arm away from the mother's grip, be it a bit more rough than necessary but she's stopped by the elder woman again._

"_You saved my grandson." She says again._

_Natasha ignores her and takes a step to the side to pass the woman._

"_I shot a man in the head because I was ordered to."_

_The woman almost puts her hand on Natasha's shoulder but stops mid-movement._

_In broken English she says: "Why excuses?"_

"_I didn't save anyone." Natasha turns back, if evading won't work, she'll take a director route. The woman is looking at her with a thoughtful look on her face. "I've never saved anyone."_

"_Have?" she asks, "What does the past matter?"_

_Natasha narrows her eyes. She opens her mouth to answer but the woman is faster._

"_The Past is gone, I do not care about what you did years ago. My grandson." She says proudly as she takes the child and embraces him. _

"_My past isn't something you can forget and forgive." If only this lady actually knew what she's talking about._

"_Not forget, not forgive." She repeats. "Accept."_

XxXxXxXxXx

"You don't even have your armor." Bruce protests.

"Won't need any of that." Tony waves with his hands.

"We just go to the past, snatch some energy and we'll be back before you know it."

Bruce opens his mouth to protest again but Thor seems to have lost his patience.

"Let us go!" he announces loudly.

"You ready?" Natasha asks, looking at Steve. For some reason she understands Steve more than anyone else. If she'd have the opportunity to go back into the past she'd want to change a lot of things as well. The knowledge of this possibility being so close, yet unreachable…

Steve nods.

"Maybe I shouldn't go." Bruce suddenly blurts out.

"If I lose control."

"Yes." Thor all but snaps.

Everybody exchanges glances, like people do when something very uncomfortable has happened and they don't want to say it out loud or react upon it.

"Let us go before we are too late."

"I don't have all my weapons, only my bow." Clint whines.

"We'll find you some toys on the way there." Tony shushes.

And then the portal opens and they step into it. The first few steps feel normal but then the entire ground (or whatever they're standing on) begins to quake and Natasha doesn't need any knowledge of magic or time travel to know they're going to wrong way.

XxXxXxXxXx

"_You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?" Steve asks and Bucky laughs._

"_Hell no. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I'm following him."_

_They're standing on the cliff. _

"_Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone on Coney Island?" Bucky asks, he takes a step back from the edge of the cliff. _

_Steve frowns for a second before he remembers._

"_Yeah, and I threw up?" _

_Bucky nods._

"_This isn't payback, is it?"_

_Steve can feel himself grinning. "Now why would I do that?"_

_Steve can feel himself falling_

"_Bucky! Grab my hand!"_

_When his sorrow and grief fades an emptiness takes its place._

"_Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."_

XxXxXxXxXx

"Rogers!"

"Roger! Wake the fuck up I'm freezing my ass off here!"

The stupid popsicle doesn't even move.

"Hey I know you don't have any problems with freezing and then waking up eighty years later but I kinda have issues with that!"

"You know that's not going to wake him up." Clint remarks.

"Shut up hawky, how are you not cold?" he glances at Clint's short sleeved vest.

Clint shrugs.

"I've been through worse." His lips are blue though. Tony's pretty sure Clint's acting all tough spy guy on him.

"Stop your bickering you fools!" Thor bellows.

"I will wake him." He lifts Mjolnir and almost slams it into the unconscious super soldier before Black Widow quickly intervenes.

"Wooh there, let's take it easy. Killing him isn't going to solve anything."

"I did not plan on killing him." Thor complains. He puts his hammer in his hand. "Just a little pat on the head."

He's not convincing, with the hammer that can destroy almost everything and all.

The sound of a train closing in reaches Tony's ears a couple of seconds after Clint's.

"Somehow I doubt we're at the correct time."

A voice behind him makes him jump.

"Brilliant deduction as expected from a mortal."

Tony's pretty certain.

That's _Loki's _voice.

XxXxXxXxXx

"Loki!"

"Another brilliant deduction." Loki drawls.

Clint wants a break. Like, yeah he's been in a coma for almost half a year but that was a coma. He'd like a nice holiday to a warm country.

"What the fuck?" Stark yells as he backs away and almost falls of the mountain when he nearly trips over Steve Rogers.

Don't ask Clint how but that action seems to wake up Captain America and not them screaming at him, no, Stark almost tripping over him…

"You're not actually here." Natasha says.

Of all of them, the only one that doesn't seem surprised is Thor. So obviously Clint turns to him instead of Loki. At the moment, he can't handle the trickster god. Especially not since Clint can see it now. It's not the child Loki that stands before them. It's the adult one, the one that killed all those people.

"So." Clint whistles while twirling an arrow in his hand.

"Mind explaining some things Thor?"

Thor is standing with his back to everyone, staring into the valley beneath them.

"It is best if my brother explains." Thor breathes, his voice sounds absent and Clint narrows his eyes to where he's looking but he really can't see anything at all.

"Explains what?" Steve's voice sounds perfectly fine, even though he's been unconscious and non-responding for half an hour. Clint guesses it has something to do with being a super soldier.

"That!" Tony uses the arm he was using to help Rogers upright to point at Loki.

Or whatever it is. Like black widow had said. Whatever's standing before them is not Loki. It looks like a projection, a very bad one at that. The image starts to flicker and Loki seems to change, like one of those 3D cards that change when you cock your head.

Well like that but with a few dozen different pictures. One second he looks like the psychopath that tried to take over earth, then he's the twelve-year-old amnesiac that had saved everyone. In between are what Clint can only guess, stages of his life. A teenager, a young man and for a split second even a toddler.

Steve narrows his eyes.

"You're in a coma."

He says in a disbelieving and angry voice. Why is Captain America angry? If Loki wasn't in a coma anymore, he should be glad, right?

"As a matter of fact I am." Loki agrees.

"That explains everything, thanks." Tony complains.

"You want me to explain? Then be silent." Loki counters as he crosses his arms.

It's silent. Rogers glances at the valley as well. Clint's not sure what he's seeing on Roger's face. In a split second he sees anger, only to be replaced by a bad poker face.

"You're in the wrong time."

"No shit Sherlock."

"Shut up Tony."

Tony holds his hand up in a defensive manner.

"But not all is lost." Loki continues and he looks at Steve.

"You know where the Tesseract is in this point of time, correct?"

Steve nods.

"You can get there in time."

"Yeah!" Tony really doesn't understand the phrase 'shut up', Clint would be more than happy to teach it to him though.

"So we can save _you _ but you're right here."

Loki waves it off with a flick of his wrist.

"Like the assassin has said, I am not really here."

"So what you're an illusion? And _who_ are you? I mean, you know, which one?"

"I am Loki. I am the Loki that came to your realm to conquer it." He turns to look at Clint.

"I am the Loki that killed your mentor."

He turns to Thor, who's still standing at the edge of the cliff, staring down.

"I am the Loki that landed on Midgard without any memories and without my age. I am the Loki that you will save." The last part is almost spit out yet at the same time, slowly stretched out in a drawl.

"What happens when we save you Loki?" Natasha asks as she advances on the image.

"Which Loki will we save?"

Loki cocks his head and his image flickers to a twelve-year-old again, his voice sounds as childlike as his image looks.

"If you save me. If you save Loki, this part will be sealed. The part that I am, that I embody, the fragment that has been sealed inside you little gem," he motions to the gem the Queen had given them,

"will be locked away only to be unlocked by time."

The longer he speaks, the more his voice sounds like the Loki they had met the first time. His voice changes slowly from the one of a boy into a man's as if to emphasize the meaning of the spoken words.

Natasha slowly nods once in understanding.

"So what?" Tony asks. "We save you, you wake up with no memories-"

"-and in time your memories will return to you." Captain America finishes the sentence.

"What guarantee do we have you won't turn on us the moment you regain your memories?"

The image of Loki smiles as it flickers from a twelve-year-old to a teenager to an adult once more.

"None."

Clint shakes his head.

"So for all we know, we're only saving you so that you can turn on us and kill us all?"

Loki doesn't answer, instead he takes a breath.

"There is one more thing that my mother or brother neglected to tell you. Did they happen to mention how to return to your own timeline?"

Clint's pretty sure he isn't going to like this. To top it all off, he is beginning to feel the chill more and more and Clint really hates the cold.

"To get away from the past, you need to accept it." As the image slowly flickers again like a candle flame being blown out Clint can hear Loki's voice in his head and he knows, Loki is talking to the others as well.

_Your brother,_ his voice says in an emotionless tone, _your mentor._

XxXxXxXxXx

"_Steve. You're alive. You came back."_

"_Yeah Peggy."_

"_It's been so long. So long."_

"_Well, I couldn't leave my best girl. Not when she owes me a dance."_

_But he did._

So much regret _Loki's voice sounds as empty as Steve feels. In it resounds every age Loki's ever had, like there are twenty Loki speaking at the same time yet it's only one voice._

_He's trying to reach him, his hands are stretched out yet he can see it's not enough._

"_Hang on." The words sound empty and desperate. Bucky's grip is already loosening._

"_Grab my hand." He can't. It's too far._

_Bucky is falling._

You cannot change the past.

_You must know this Captain of America: you cannot change the past, you cannot meddle with your own time stream, whatever you do, whoever you lost, you can never bring them back or save them. Or you will destroy this reality and everyone in it._

You can decide the future.

_The flashes of images before his eyes are blinding. His brain can barely comprehend any of them and his head hurts even more than that time a bully had almost ripped his head off in a fight._

_He can hear people scream and guns are shooting, the shadow of a man standing over so many dead corpses and a flash of metal and red._

XxXxXxXxXx

"Bucky!" the first thing Steve Rogers notices is that everyone else is lying unconscious. The next is the sound of an oncoming train.

He can hear the sounds of a fight even though it's happening a few miles under him. Even though it's so far away.

He drowns out the noise in the back of his head, he suppresses the memories that are trying, desperately to make him see, to make him turn around and _change _the one thing that he regrets most in his life.

He forces himself to hear the howling of the winds. He forces himself to order the Avenger to get ready to get to the Tesseract.

He ignores the stare he gets from Romanoff as he jumps down and doesn't wait for the others.

He ignores the occasional glances he gets from Barton when they jump on the next train and knock out the people on it.

And he ignores the protest from everyone as he explains the plan to them.

XxXxXxXxXx

"_Pep- I mean miss. Potts." Tony nods at her. Pepper smiles at him but it's not the smile that Tony _knows, _it's not the one he wants._

"_Mister Stark." She greets him back, coffee in her hand._

_She presses the button of the floor she has to be on._

_S.H.I.E.L.D., no Fury had told him to stay away. Had told him that just being there, that his mere presence could set off a chain reaction that would undo the Memory Wipe and crush her mind._

_And Tony had listened. Had obeyed… for a month or so. Even though he knew what the consequences could be since he was the one that figured out that she would have to be Wiped. He had been watching, the video surveillance that was on her 24/7 he had been cursing an yelling and shouting. He had stood on the middle of his own damn roof and screamed and yelled and shouted again. He had screamed for this guy who saw everything, he had screamed for Thor to come back and fix everything._

_Hell he had even screamed for the damn All-Father for hours until his voice gave away and he almost toppled over the tower._

_But he can't stay away anymore. He's standing next to her, so close and yet she feels farther away than even when they had had nothing yet. Than when she'd been his secretary and that's it._

_And if Tony's honest, when Fury comes inside his house the moment Tony himself arrives he almost feels relieved. He almost hopes that he'll say that the memory Wipe has been undone and that she remembers everything but then he realizes again. She can never remember again._

_She must never remember again and it's the same thing Fury yells at him. It's the same thing but in other words and coming from another man's mouth but it's still the same thing._

_Pepper Potts. The love of his life, the only one that had bared with him. That had loved him, that he had loved, can never remember that she loves Tony again. Can never fall in love with him again because who would fall in love with a depressed alcoholic billionaire who doesn't come out of the house again?_

_Because what if she does fall in love with him again and she starts to remember? Then she'll die, no, she'll go insane because whatever happens she cannot ever remember again._

_And that's the moment where Tony mutes Jarvis. He shuts down Dumm-e he shuts down everything except his lab downstairs. He invests in a giant research facility underneath his house that spreads for miles without a soul working there except he himself._

_Every single artifact that's been found after the Battle of New York he's collecting. Every single book about magic about Norse mythology he can find fills his library. _

_Every single study of the human memory and brains is read and every night he curses and yells at the sky but the sky never answers._

_Every single day he looks at the video feed from S.H.I.E.L.D. and he watches as Pepper goes on with her life. As she meets new people, as she works until late at night and then returns home, oblivious to anything that's really going on around her._

_Every single night and day, as he sees her being happy with the life she has he wonders whether what he's trying to do, what he's trying to accomplish is for her of just for his own selfish reasons?_

_But every time he shakes his head and continues working and reading and studying because he needs Pepper. And he convinces himself: _Pepper needs him too.

**If you guys don't review or comment then I don't know who's still interested!**


	5. Chapter 5

**EXAMS ARE FINISHED! I probably failed all of them because I kept thinking about this fic but fuck that! I can finally update! I do have to say my holidays will be very, very busy so I don't know how much I'll be able to update, thank you SO MUCH for those who reviewed you are keeping this story going! Please keep telling me what you think about the story of what your ideas are about what will happen next I'd love to read that!**

"I don't like the plan."

"Thank you for that input Tony it's most helpful." Steve answers blankly.

Tony huffs and crosses his arms even though it looks like that's pretty hard in a metal suit.

"Change the plan."

"I'm not changing the plan Tony." Steve says, then a moment later. "It's a good plan."

"It's not."

"For god's sake Stark if you don't shut up right now I'm shooting you." Clint snaps.

"Go ahead Legolas, your arrows aren't enough to penetrate this armor!"

"You wanna bet?"

"SHUT UP!" Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, whatnot is slammed into the ground.

Almost everyone loses their balance except Clint and Natasha because they're the only ones seated. For some reason Clint's feeling relaxed, for the first time in a very, very long time he doesn't feel angry or sorrowful or full of lust for revenge.

He doesn't feel empty inside. He feels like he felt before all of this Avengers shit suddenly started happening out of nowhere.

Natasha though. She feels like a stranger. Not a total stranger like some woman you just pass on the street. A person he used to know but it seems like he doesn't anymore, not really. She still acts the same way. With a poker face and hiding her true feelings behind a small smile or a witty remark. She still moves with that lethal air around her.

But she's different. Clint doesn't know how to describe it but she feels off and in all the years he's known her she's ever been like this once. She's sitting next to him in a relaxed way, like him and to everyone else she doesn't look odd or different. His musings are interrupted by another bickering round.

"You actually _like _the plan?" Stark protests to Thor.

"If it will work it is enough." Thor grits out, taking a step toward Stark.

"I am not just sitting here and-"

"Look, it's a good plan and it's the plan we're using." Steve quickly intervenes before it can turn into a full-out brawl.

"I still don't like it."

"Too bad." Clint says.

XxXxXxXxXx

"_You're not staying in Stark Tower?"_

_Steve shrugs but the movement looks like it exhausts him._

"_I don't think the offer still stands."_

_They both look through the window that shows them Stark tower and even though they can't see what's happening there they can both imagine, they don't need the live stream that's even available to them for when Stark might snap. They're not even part of the operation around Stark and miss Potts but they're still up to date, if needed S.H.I.E.L.D. will call on them both._

"_How's Clint?"_

"_In a coma." Natasha doesn't want that to sound as bitter as it does._

_When Steve doesn't act in the uncomfortable manner he would have a few weeks ago it makes her a little more happy as well as sad. _

"_What are you going to do?" His question sounds like he's not talking to her._

"_What I'm supposed to. Missions." It's not a lie. Not really._

_Silence for a few minutes._

"_What about you?" she asks eventually._

_Steve laughs and for the first time in their entire conversation it doesn't sound like every word and sound coming out of his mouth is forced out._

"_I came back into the world, I might as well do something good now that I'm here."_

_She doesn't wait until he walks away, instead she turns away._

_Steve Rogers aka Captain America will do something good. It shouldn't make her feel like this. It shouldn't make her feel like Steve Rogers doesn't know what he's talking about but it still does._

_The elevator starts out way to full of people for her tastes but it slowly fills out as she goes lower and lower._

_The doors slide open without so much as a sound. The silence and darkness would almost make you think the whole floor is abandoned. As she passes other rooms she doesn't look at the nameplates or at some rooms, the lack thereof. _

_The doors of his room slide open and it's exactly the way she left it._

_The only machines hooked into him are to check up on his vitals. Everything is as normal as can possibly be the only thing that suggests he's not in a natural sleep are the machines hooked to him and the spikes one of those machines show. His brain activity is as high as it would be had he been conscious. _

_She'll find a way to awaken him. She's seen Tony Stark on the rooftop of his building screaming at the sky but Natasha's never needed any stupid bat shit crazy Norse Gods before. _

_She'll find a way._

XxXxXxXxXx

"Hail Hydra!"

Steve lifts both hands in the air and the guards do the same thing while yelling: "Hail Hydra!" as well.

The doors slide open and once they're inside Clint elbows him.

"That was a bit much wasn't it, Cap?" he almost giggles.

"Really?"

Steve's not much into this spy and undercover thing.

Barton though, Barton looks like he's a fucking natural, he walks around with an air of knowing exactly where to go even though he's actually relying on Steve to show him the way. He nods to almost every other Hydra agent they come across and if Steve didn't know any better he would've almost suspected it's a real Hydra agent that's walking beside him.

When they're alone in a deserted hallway he elbows him again.

"You're a bit stiff."

"Yes." Steve answers. "It's almost like I'm stressed about a mission happening in my own past."

Clint stops him in surprise and whirls around, taking his mask off for a second and his face shows mock wonder.

"You do sarcasm now? Wow I didn't know that, I missed a lot in those few months didn't I? You're adapting to the modern world very well!"!"

He slaps Steve on the back and puts his mask back on.

"Are you following us Stark?" Steve feels stupid talking to his left sleeve. Barton doesn't seem to mind, he's looking around with the energy and curiosity that almost reminds Steve of a child. A child with a deadly bow hidden on his back and a dozen knives in the rest of his outfit.

"You should be the one following me." Stark pouts.

"I'm assuming that's baby language for: yes." Clint yells at Steve left sleeve.

"Don't be so loud!" Steve warns but Barton just shrugs.

"I just heard from Tasha, no one's here, this hallway is the more deserted than the freaking desert."

"More deserted than the desert? That's the best you can come up with?" Stark whines.

"See this is why you should've taken me! My puns and jokes are way funnier."

Barton puts his right hand on his chest and the other one on his hip with a shocked expression on his face and grabs Steve's sleeve, pulling it closer to his mouth.

"Excuse me? Which one of us is the spy with the actual experience of going undercover?"

"Romanoff."

Barton lets go of the sleeve with an exasperated sigh.

"Whatever."

"You two done?" Steve snaps.

And then to Barton.

"Let's go."

They continue their way and except for a few Hydra soldiers who just nod back at Clint they don't come across anyone.

When they finally arrive at the hallway of their destination Clint takes of his mask.

"Let me guess: it's the giant, metal and locked door with those two Hydra agents in front of it?"

Steve just nods and puts the sleeve back to his mouth to ask Stark to do something but suddenly he sees Barton throw something at the guards.

"Think fast!" He yells.

One of them actually catches it and he realizes what it is he's catching just a split second too late. They're both unconscious in a fraction of a second. Steve looks at Barton.

"What? You think Stark's the only one who can have toys?"

In his ear he can hear Stark whine.

"That is a design originally from me!"

Barton grabs a guard and stuff him in the cupboard in the other hallway and motion Steve to do the same.

"But I perfected it!"

When the guards are stowed away Steve puts the stupid sleeve back to his mouth even though Barton rolls his eyes at him, muttering that it's unnecessary but Stark is faster.

"No one's in there Stevie."

Barton is standing next to the door and opens his arms.

"The honor is all yours." He says in a mock bow.

XxXxXxXxXx

"_I don't know I swear, please I-"_

_With a twirl of the knife he plunges it in his leg again. He tries to muffle his own screams but it just sounds like he's choking. _

_Agent Romanoff yanks out the knife and before the man in front of her can regain his breath she stabs him again, the same spot but with a twist._

_This time he does scream._

_She just cocks her head._

"_Let's try that again."_

_His labored breathing fills the room and when she yanks the knife back out the only thing he does is grit his teeth and his breath quickens for a few seconds._

"_I-I told you, I don't know anything."_

_She almost stabs the knife in his chest. Almost._

_Instead she gets up and kicks the chair from under him making him fall on the ground with a grunt._

_XxXxXxXxXx_

"_That took longer than it should have." Maria Hill comments._

"_I said I needed a day." Hill doesn't seem convinced._

"_Where's Fury?"_

"_In his office."_

_When she makes a move to go inside Hill stops her._

"_He doesn't want to be disturbed." _

_Again. _

"_It's been a month." Natasha says. Fury's been evading her for a month and she can't help but feel angry. The only time they've spoken is just after they'd returned from Asgard. About Clint._

"_Here's your next mission." She hands her a memory stick. Sometimes Natasha really just wants a sheet of paper. _

"_Don't tell me you need a whole day for this one as well."_

_As she looks down on the paper she shakes her head._

"_Two."_

XxXxXxXxXx

"That's it!" Captain America says as he runs toward the Tesseract.

"Yeah, I've seen it." Clint says, be it a little bit enthusiastic.

It might not have been the Tesseract that had taken his mind, the blue, eerie glow is enough to make him hate it already. Somehow it also feels different. The room seems warmer than the hallway and the eerie glow doesn't make him feel as much disgust as he had expected.

For the first time he also starts to understand why everyone wanted it so badly, even before he had felt the power it radiated. But now, it feels like that power has tripled even though it's the exact same stone and it's almost like a warm fire in a dark and cold room.

He's switching between being disgusted because of it or fascinated like he's never been. Rogers doesn't seem to have the same problem though, he's already next to the Tesseract and he's holding the gem close to it.

Barton truly expected there to be a lot of sparkles and all of that, or at least a flash of blinding light but the only thing that happens is that the color of the see through gem starts to change, like the battery of a phone loading. It also takes longer than he had expected, seriously, the gem is just small enough to fit in his fist and it's still only half blue after ten minutes of just standing there.

Rogers seems to think the same thing. His shoulders slump with the minute. Barton's willing to bet Captain America had pictured something more awesome as well.

"Hey, you fell asleep from the grenade as well," Stark asks after another ten minutes. That stupid gem seems to fill up slower with every passing second.

"Talking about sleeping." Rogers says.

"How long are those guards gonna stay asleep?"

Clint looks up from where he's poking some weapons and smuggling some other ones in his pockets? His head pokes jus from over the machines in the room.

"Don't worry your pretty little head over something as trivial as that Cap, they're out for the next few hours, believe me."

"Yeah!" Stark almost yells in his earpiece. "Believe the one who's guilty of copyright infringement!"

Even from a few feet away Barton can hear the sound of Stark being pushed off his chair.

"Steve, Barton, there's someone coming, I think it's the Red Skull."

"Great!"

XxXxXxXxXx

"_I have all the time in the world." Natasha leans back in the chair and the man before her doesn't react. She twirls another knife and throws it._

_With a loud Clang that resonates even to where she's sitting, it embeds itself only a millimeter away from the man's face but he doesn't even flinch. She's not impressed. The last day, she's had douchebags like this, bound against that wall, that's already full of holes from other knifes and streaked with blood for when her victims wouldn't talk. She knows Clint wouldn't approve. Actually, she's not so certain anymore. Barton used to be the one that stopped her, especially the first few months. Mercy had been something she knew nothing about and minimizing casualties had been nothing but a weakness back then. When she wanted information she got it, and the blood she got on her hands, had just been washed off as easily as dirt. But when Barton found her, her walls had already begun to crack._

_The blood didn't wash off as easily. The cries of pain and the pleading for mercy had suddenly sound so much louder. After joining S.H.I.E.L.D. she had tried. Breaking bones instead of skulls and shooting limbs instead of vital organs. She had thought she'd done good with that. Barton had showed her though. Tranquilizer and small electricity weapons could be enough too. _

_Information could be won with persuasion and truth. Eventually she understood that if she truly wanted to be free of all the blood, if she truly wanted to be a part of an organization whose name is literally S.H.I.E.L.D. she needed to forget her past training, everything they had shown her, taught her was wrong and she had to let go. She'd never be free, she knew that. Doesn't mean she wouldn't at least try._

_But the last… months, Barton had changed, had gotten a cruel streak she'd never seen in him but she knew he had in him all along. She'd read his file, she'd done her research. A past like hers isn't easily shrugged off. A past like Clint's…_

_She throws another knife. This time it embed itself not in the metal behind her prisoner but in his flesh but the sounds are almost the same. Only now, it's the sound of a knife hitting flesh. There's no reaction. No wincing, his breathing doesn't speed up, just like the other ones. She'd only been able to capture three, the fourth one she had been forced to kill._

"_I've got a lot more knives, how much blood can you lose?" she asks._

_No reaction. She didn't expect one anyway._

_Another knife, this time it pierces the man's wrist and blood pours out of the wound but still no sound. She's checked the nerves, this man, and his predecessors all feel pain, in the same way any other man would._

"_I was hoping you'd be of more use than your friends." Natasha sighs in an almost tragic way. She gets up and twirl a hammer in her left hand._

_She'd been hoping she wouldn't have to do all off this, but she'll find a way._

XxXxXxXxXx

"Cap, you don't seem to grasp the concept of 'hide because the super-evil mastermind is coming' do you?" Barton grits out. His arrow is blocking the door, something that can be easily seen as a small malfunction but is only useful as a diversion for a few precious seconds.

"Put on your disguise and stand by the door Rogers!" Stark yells.

"Steve." Natasha pushes Stark away from the microphone. "When he leaves you'll be able to continue, don't blow your cover."

Nobody can be as convincing as Black Widow, Barton reasons, because then Steve runs toward him, mask on and stands next to him by the door.

The door opens and in steps the ugliest effing dude Barton's ever seen and he comes from a freakin' circus so yeah, he's seen his share of ugly dudes. The Red Skull, of course there are files one him, a few dozen but most depict him in his normal form, not his ugly red one. The only photo they do have of him with his red skull is old and yellow and just, plainly almost unrecognizable.

"The Tesseract." He says, in the weirder German accent ever.

He turns to both Rogers and Barton.

"Take it to the plane."

What fucking plane? But then Barton can see Schmidt's brought another Hydra agent with him who helps them carry the Tesseract away. Pretty unnecessary considering the thing doesn't nearly weigh enough that it needs three grown men to carry it but hey, they're not here to question the necessity of Hydra's actions or orders.

The hallway is long, very long, longer than Barton can remember it to be. Suddenly a light glow catches his eye and he can see Cap's hand glow bright blue.

With a quick glance both Barton and Rogers quickly realize that their companion hasn't got a clue, he's just walking and apparently isn't questioning the length of this freaking hallway.

"What's happening?" Barton whispers.

"The Gem is glowing!" Rogers whispers back.

"Thanks, real helpful."

"I think it's still absorbing Energy." Captain America says.

They take a turn and another unrealistically long hallway appears before them.

The guy in front of them turns his head as far as he can but he doesn't seem that flexible as he can barely see Barton.

"You saying something?" he asks.

Clint wants to answer because, honestly, he doesn't trust Cap to do this one but Rogers is faster.

"What? Me? Nope, I didn't say anything." His voice sounds so fake and silent that Clint's pretty sure their cover's blown but apparently Hydra agents aren't chosen because of their intelligence. Or common sense.

"Is something wrong with your voice?" he asks as they take another turn and greet a pair of Hydra agents standing guard in an empty hallway door leading to another empty hallway. _Great infrastructure they have here_ Clint sniggers to himself.

"Oh him? Don't mind him, something with his throat, can barely speak properly, not that I'm complaining." He pats Rogers on the back and laughs.

"You probably heard the guttural noises he's been making all day, drives me crazy!"

All of them laugh though Rogers' laugh sound a bit strained.

They get to the ship and a quick glance at Rogers' hand is all Barton needs to see the Gem has stopped glowing. It must be full and if it isn't, well they did everything they could, time to go. He signals to Steve that says as much but he seems to have figured it our himself. They both place the Tesseract where the other guy leads them.

"So yeah, nice uhm, carrying the Tesseract with you and all but we have to go, guard duty and all that!" Clint puts both arms forward.

"Hail Hydra!" and then they're both gone.

XxXxXxXxXx

_The three of them had not been helpful. She carries the bodies to the incinerator, obviously these men were nobodies. By the time anyone realized they were gone, Natasha would be out of here and the only thing they'd find will be their ashes and no trace of their killer._

_The smell of burning flesh reaches her nose but she keeps going, they're dead, it's not like they're gonna complain about being stuffed in an incinerator._

_Two days, she'd told Maria Hill, those two days are almost over and she still has no leads. She's been searching for a long time now and over a week ago she'd found something interesting. These men, or whatever they are, experiments to… she doesn't know what end or who is responsible but the project they're working on might save Barton. _

_For the millionth time she can feel the doubt inside her head. Barton, not even the Barton with the cruel streak would've wanted this but the doubt is pushed away like it has been also a million times._

_These people experimenting on others are no good. Eliminating them is good. And if she by accident finds the solution to her problem, then why not just take it?_

_Suddenly Natasha almost loses her balance and when she looks down she sees something she'd missed. A document, something about ownership and research labs._

Project Centipede

**These are all Easter Eggs for those who watch Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. though if you don't watch it, it's not that bad, you'll still be able to follow the story! **

**Please review!**

**XxTheAlgea**


	6. Chapter 6

**Yes, this is it, the big reveal about what Natasha has been hiding all along. Nobody guessed at all (which is a bit of a disappointment but maybe some of you did but just didn't tell me?) anyway enjoy!**

"Now go east."

"We just went west, why would we want to go east again?"

"Just go east!" They should just obey everything Tony says. Things would be much easier for everyone.

"Stark?"

"What Birdie?"

"I think you're reading the map wrong."

"Excuse me? I am not-"

Romanoff pushes him off his chair, _again_, and seats herself, turning the map 180 degrees.

"You're right agent Barton, you should be going south now."

Thor gives him an incredulous look.

"I was told you were an intelligent Midgardian." He says.

Tony shrugs.

"Hey, give me something technological to fix and I'm your guy, I hate geography."

As he tries to get his chair back, Romanoff just stops him with one arm and he almost loses his balance.

"It's called a sense of direction." He hears Barton say from the other end.

Tony pushes away Romanoff's arm, grabs the mic and yells: "It's not if you're not actually walking but reading a map."

Natasha takes the microphone back and frowns at him.

"Where are they now?" Thor asks. Tony shrugs.

"Romanoff took my microphone." He pouts.

"I do not see-"

"-they should be here in ten minutes." Natasha interrupts before speaking in the microphone again.

"By the way," Tony lifts himself from the ground, using the chair Romanoff is sitting in and looks at Thor, "When they're here, what do we do?"

"Mother will know when we are ready."

"So when's that?" Tony asks.

Thor looks at him but Tony's got an odd feeling he's not talking to him.

"The only way to go back, is letting go of your past."

Yeah, Tony's pretty sure he's not talking to him.

XxXxXxXxXx

"_Great fight, brother but the sword. It's obvious the dwarves did something wrong while making the grip." Loki says as he takes a step toward Thor and accepts the sword his brother gives him. He sheathes the sword, quickly following Thor out of the arena._

"_The grip." Thor repeats as he makes his way to the Weapon room._

"_Of course!" Loki smiles, right behind him. "I'll reprimand them for you."_

_Thor turns around._

"_No lies brother." He says and he takes the sword from his brother's grip._

"_I asked father to make the Einerjahr my opponents to become a better warrior but…" Thor trails off._

"_And you are!" Loki assures him. "A better warrior I mean."_

"_The grip?" Thor asks after a long silence. His brother nods most determinedly._

"_Like I said." Thor seems to win back his confidence as he smiles and then he says quite a bit louder._

"_Of course it was the grip! What else could it be?" and he turns back around, sword in hand and marches away. He's only gone for two seconds when Sif appears._

"_The grip." She repeats._

_Loki wouldn't have reacted at all be it not that he really did not like the tone she said it with._

"_Yes." He smiles again although he doesn't want to smile at Sif and he's certain his smile doesn't work on her._

"_You do your brother no favor Loki."_

_Loki rolls his eyes, smirk still ever prominent on his face as he walks past her in the direction of the castle._

_Stupid Sif, as if she knows anything. As if she knows what it's like to live next to Thor. Who can be as arrogant as he can be uncertain. Doubts plague his mind constantly but foolishness, stubbornness and his thirst for fights always push them back. Or Loki does._

_Stupid Sif as if she knows what favors are. As if she knows Thor better than he does. As if she knows Loki._

_XxXxXxXxXx_

"_Loki, why are you still in here?" Thor's loud voice makes him jump._

_He sighs, he loves Thor but sometimes, he can be very annoying._

"_The question is," Loki pushes himself out of the chair he's been sitting in, "what are you doing here brother?"_

_Thor eyes the frozen water with a frown before he looks back at his brother._

"_You and Amora have been up here for far too long."_

_Loki's turn to frown._

"_Amora isn't here." I'm surprised she stayed this long anyway. Loki cannot help but think. She truly thinks he has no idea why she's teaching him when Mother has no time. Unlike Thor. Loki does have a clue._

"_Well no matter. Come hunting with us."_

"_Us?" he asks even though he knows the answer._

"_Sif and the Warriors Three and me." Thor suddenly jumps forward and grabs his brother's arm as he drags Loki down._

"_And you."_

_And Loki cannot help but smile._

_Stupid Sif. As if she knows anything._

XxXxXxXxXx

"Surprise bitches, bet you thought you'd seen the last of me." Barton says.

Natasha smiles at him for half a second and she knows he's caught it. He seems too happy for some reason. At first she'd believed it was a front. But now, she's not so sure.

Barton hasn't been this way since before everything went down and the world almost got enslaved by the man they're now saving and busting their asses for in the past. Funny how life can turn out to be.

"Took you long enough." Stark comments. Until now, he also had been so free of worries and almost like he'd been when Natasha had first met him. At the moment though, he looks tired again.

"We got the Gem and we think it's full of energy."

"You think." Stark's face looks everything but pleased.

"We're pretty sure." Clint shrugs.

"But, you know, we're not exactly experts when it comes to alien energy absorbing rocks that need energy from an infinite blue, glowing power source."

Thor takes two steps and takes the Gem from Clint none too gently.

"It's full." He says.

"It most certainly is." Loki says.

XxXxXxXxXx

"_You want time off."_

"_Yes." She says articulating ridiculously slow as if talking to an infant. "Time off. As in time for me to think."_

_Maria Hill's face goes from skeptical to uncertain in a mere second._

"_And since Fury's refusing to see me I'm asking you."_

_Hill looks at the data pad in her hand._

"_If you really wanted some time off you could go dark and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it."_

_True. Very true._

"_Instead you're asking us for permission to do so."_

_Natasha shakes her head. _

_She opens her mouth to say something but Maria Hill is faster._

"_You're not asking permission, you're informing us." She nods._

"_Unless director Fury has something to say about that?" she asks. Petty, she knows but she doesn't care._

_Silence is the only answer she needs._

_Natasha Romanoff turns away and walks to the elevator._

"_For how long will you be gone?" Hill asks._

"_As long as it takes." Natasha says, in her most honest sentence she's ever said to Maria Hill since the Battle for Asgard._

_XxXxXxXxXx_

"_I know you wouldn't want me to do this."_

_No response. She didn't come here for a response._

"_But I owe you."_

_She knows there are cameras but she doesn't care. It's not like she's going to tell them what she's going to do. But for some reason, she wants to tell this, whatever she can, to him even though he probably can't hear her and she's actually talking to the walls._

_Natasha Romanoff has never been sentimental. Sitting here, talking to someone who's comatose. It's not her and she knows it. But fighting aliens didn't used to be her either so to hell with all of that._

"_I'll find a way."_

XxXxXxXxXx

"Good, then zap us back to the future." Stark sounds uncertain all of a sudden.

"I distinctly remember telling you that it is not that simple." Loki answers evenly. He can feel his own form flickering and he hides his irritation. Even a fragment such as he can find things irritating.

"One good thing however, Captain of America," he turns to Steve who looks up, shaking his head as if waking up from a bizarre dream, "Like you were the anchor that lead you to this time, I am the one that will lead you to your present one. And unlike you I will be able to bring you back to the exact moment you have to be."

"Amazing." Stark seems to have found his lost courage and certainty and replaces his doubt with vigor and enthusiasm that mask not only his doubts but also his fears and worries. Needless to say he cannot fool the God of Lies, even if he's just a fragment.

"Let's go back and save your sorry ass."

"You will return through a similar portal as the one you came from."

"But there's a catch." Agent Barton looks miserable.

"Yes." Black Widow nods. "You said so earlier. But you didn't go much into detail." She looks skeptical but as a fragment and not an actual person Loki seems to have gotten better at reading people especially with all this power and energy suddenly linked to him. She's not skeptical, she's not afraid either. She just doesn't know and not knowing is just as bad as being frightened, arguably, worse.

"To go back to your own timeline you must forget about this one. About the Past because now that you are all here, the natural order of things wants you to stay and slowly but steadily you will disintegrate as the natural law does what it's supposed to."

"No pressure." Stark jokes. Nobody laughs. Loki doubts that even for Midgardian standards that is a very bad joke.

"Forget?" It's the Captain of America who again looks like he just awoke.

"Forget-" Thor begins and he trails off.

"-is not the correct word." Loki finishes for him.

"Not forget." Natasha Romanoff's eyes look distant. "Not forgive. Accept."

Loki nods. Nobody looks too happy about all of this.

The Gem starts to glow and everyone can feel that familiar pull they had felt when they first got here.

"I do hope at least one of you makes it to deliver the stone." Loki says, to no one in particular.

_XxXxXxXxXx_

_They can't see him. They certainly, absolutely cannot see him. They can hear him though so Loki tries to hold his breath but rejects the idea as soon as it's formed in his head. Only fools would do such a thing. You can't hold your breath long enough and then you will gasp for that what you've been holding and that will certainly be heard._

"_Thor are you coming or did a horse knock you out?" Fandral jests as his head is seen popping from the window in the stables? Thor laughs and picks up a stone to throw it but Fandral's already ducked and the stone flies out of the window harmlessly._

"_Maybe he saw a mouse and got scared." Volstagg concludes. _

"_Well me voluminous friend, that is a very real possibility."_

"_Shut up!" Sif sighs as she mounts her own horse. _

"_Thor, what are you doing?" _

_Thor doesn't turn around._

"_Loki's been up there for ages." He mutters. Sif has heard him though, so has Volstagg._

"_So?" he asks. Fandral doesn't say anything he wanders off to Hogunn who's sitting, hunched on his horse, pulling Volstagg with him._

_Sif gets off her horse and grabs the prince's shoulder to stop him._

"_Maybe he wants to be there all day." She says. Thor frowns and turns around._

"_I was thinking I could ask him to-" but then he sees his friend's faces, as does Loki. It's not like he didn't expect those faces, it's just that even though he did, it doesn't hurt less. He scolds himself. Who cares what they think, right?_

"_Why are you looking like that?"_

"_Like what?" Volstagg asks, looking down._

"_At the ground." _

"_The ground is very interesting." Volstagg says, not even remotely convincing._

_Thor looks at Sif. Of course he does and for some reason Loki finds himself swelling with anger. His brother is a fool if he cannot see this. Or does he know Loki's here and wants to humiliate him further? Loki shakes his head as if to shake away the very thought. Thor wouldn't._

_Sif sighs and looks away for a second before looking Thor in the eye._

"_Look it's not like we want to be disrespectful or anything-"_

_Thor takes a step back, shaking her hand from his shoulder._

"_-Be careful where you tread Sif. Loki is a prince and my brother."_

_Si takes a step forward._

"_I know that Thor but it's just when he's around-"_

"_-There's trouble." It surprises them all that it's Hogun who says the words that are on everyone's lips._

_Thor looks away, at the tower he thinks Loki is in. Loki holds his breath even though he just reasoned it's a stupid thing to do._

"_They're just harmless pranks." Thor's argument sounds weak._

"_Look Thor, don't you want to go hunting without him for a change? I know he's your brother but that doesn't mean you need to do everything with him." _

_She conveniently leaves the fact that he and Thor have done increasingly less together over the past few years._

_Loki convinces himself he doesn't feel a stab of hurt as Thor and his friends go hunting._

_He didn't want to go hunting anyway._

XxXxXxXxXx

_The assassin turned agents quickly crouches and keeps going. He'll kill Trick Shot and be done with this, he'll severe the last ties he has to his past. _

_Suddenly the smoke clears for a moment and Clint takes the opportunity presented to him. He shoots, his arrow hits the mask instead of the face and the person falls._

_His mask slides of his face and it's not Trick Shot that lies there unconscious, surrounded by flames. It's Barney._

_And then the ceiling collapses on both of them._

_I killed my brother._

_When they clear the rubble Clint doesn't feel anything._

_He killed his brother._

_And suddenly everything turns black._

Your brother is dead.

_Yes. Clint thinks. Barney's dead because I killed him._

Your brother is dead.

_Whose voice is that anyway?_

Your brother is dead.

_With every repeat of that same sentence Clint can feel himself becoming numb._

Your mentor is dead.

_The change of sentence doesn't faze him, the stabs of pain and sorrow do. Even after all this time._

You killed thousands.

_Yes, Clint thinks. I killed my brother. I killed my parents. It's all my fault._

_He can see the faces of the people he's killed. He can see his brother and him, playing in the garden, running and yelling and yes, fighting, things brothers do. He can see his father apologize. He didn't mean it, it's going to be fine, everything is going to be fine, that, that was the last time. Yes, Barney is okay. No it's not a good time to see him yet. Everything is going to be fine._

_Yes, Barney, I do want to go with you but this, this is my home now, right? Our home?_

"_The offer still stands." Barney says, "If you change your mind, I'll wait for you."_

_I changed my mind you know. And then I grew up and then I killed you. The words roll over his lips but he doesn't really say them._

They're dead.

_Clint wants to scream at the voice. Of course they're dead. I killed them! But he doesn't and the voice keeps repeating the same thing and eventually the numbness returns, he warps himself in it, like a blanket. And when the voice says it, so does he._

They're dead.

_And then, and he doesn't know where it comes from._

Not forget.

_Don't forget Barney. Do not forget Coulson. Do not forget the hundreds you killed._

Not forgive.

_Forgiveness is relative. I have red in my ledger. I will wipe it out._

Accept.

And then he wakes up and everyone's looking at him and he can see that it's not everyone.

He can't see Natasha.

XxXxXxXxXx

_The air vents are hot. Crazy hot. _

_She's from Russia, not Thailand. _

_Underneath her she hears people talking but even with her skills she cannot understand them. She knows she has only four more minutes. Project Centipede, a project that she stills know next to nothing about._

_A project she'll uncover and she'll use it. She'll find a way._

_She always does._

_With a new determination she crawls forward._

_Three minutes._

_God it's hot in here._

_The documents sprawled on the table, she cannot read but she uses the lens camera to zoom in._

_She still can't read most of it but she takes a picture. No time to be wasted every second counts. Every few inches she can take a picture even though she can't read the documents yet. _

_Two minutes._

_She knows one thing about the project: S.H.I.E.L.D. knows about it, more than she does and is very determined to not share this information with her. She's found out. SH.I.E.L.D. is sending a team. She couldn't see which one, who is in it but it doesn't matter. It's the only facility they know so it's also the only one she does and she had only discovered all of this hours ago. This is her only chance._

_The seconds seem to slow down but at the same time accelerate, she knows Barton's never had a problem with this. Time is something she know, is Barton's forte, when on missions she would need a timer faster than he does. He 'd be more precise than a timer sometimes. With weapons where timing is everything she knows it's only logical that Barton is so good at it. Of course she's good at it too. Just not nearly as good as Barton. Not that's she'd ever admit that of course._

_She bests him in all the other aspects anyway. Except shooting. Even her gun shots aren't as precise as his arrows. Her knives are though, or close anyway She's more skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Close-combat, something Barton excels at too of course but less than her. With her for close-combat and his for long distance shots they make the best team._

_They're partners and she owes him this._

_One minutes. With a curse she scrawl back as fast as she can. She cannot be caught here when she's supposedly gone dark. She out of the shaft a lot less quickly than she had hoped and the guard she's knocked out is already stirring. She considers kicking him again but decides against it. If S.H.I.E.L.D. comes here to find the guard unconscious it's going to raise question marks._

_She really doesn't need those right now, what she needs is her speed and stealth ._

_Natasha Romanoff slips past the door again, making sure the device keeping her concealed to cameras in her pocket is online. At the exact time she had expected them to come they do._

_Only problem is she isn't where she's supposed to. With an angry curse she moves to a sprint, ignoring the fact that it might cause a malfunction in the device in her pocket. Chances are S.H.I.E.L.D. or the organization itself will blow this entire thing up anyway. She's seen them pack up so she knows they know some kind of attack will go down. Or they're very ,very cautious._

_It's only one reason more for her to keep investigating, something like this. It's bound to have some answers. And answers is all agent Romanoff truly needs. Since neither Thor nor the entire fucking realm of Asgard are willing to provide those answers she'll find them herself._

_She hears the noise of a fight and when a guard sees her she knocks him out before he can utter a word. Now that the attack had begun, an unconscious enemy will not be seen as anything suspicious anyway._

_When she slips away through the door she hears the team that has been sent come right after her, though she doubts they've seen her._

_She's outside before the team behind her can see her and she runs to the nearest wall._

_She knows she shouldn't but when she hears that familiar voice she cannot stop herself. And afterwards she isn't sure whether it was a good decision or a horrible one._

_She looks back anyway._

_And she knows why she recognized the voice. As she recognizes the face and everything else._

_The leader of the team is speaking to the comm line._

_Ad when she turns back and doesn't see the face anymore but does hear the voice she know it._

_The voice of Phil Coulson._

**I believe this is quite a long chapter, don't you? Reviews please and I might update next week if not it'll be for two weeks!**


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